McMaverick category archive

In the third major segment of This American Life this week, Alex Blumberg deconstructs the Republican lie that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac caused the collapse of the mortgage market, and therefore the collapse of the housing market, and therefore of the collapse of the whole wide world.

Of course, believing that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, rather than criminally negligent and even some fraudulent practices by banks and mortgage companies, mortgage brokers and real estate salespersons, is convenient for Republicans, because it absolves their failed stewardship of governance from responsibility for what happened.

And, as I have demonstated, conservatives never take responsibity for their failed policies.

Remember who was in charge from 2001-2007 and who blocked anything from happening in Congress in 2007-2008.

From the website (emphasis added):

Alex Blumberg returns (in collaboration with the Planet Money podcast) with the latest in the financial crisis. This and other stories about people trying to find new solutions to age-old problems—solutions that sometimes cause problems of their own.

From Fact Check dot org. Follow the link the for the full analysis (emphasis added):

In a TV ad, McCain says Obama “lied” about his association with William Ayers, a former bomb-setting, anti-war radical from the 1960s and ’70s. We find McCain’s claim to be groundless. New details have recently come to light, but nothing Obama said previously has been shown to be false.

In a Web ad and in repeated attacks from the stump, McCain describes the two as associates, and Palin claims they “pal around” together. But so far as is known, their relationship was never very close. An Obama spokesman says they last saw each other in a chance encounter on the street more than a year ago.

McCain says in an Internet ad that the two “ran a radical ‘education’ foundation” in Chicago. But the supposedly “radical” group was supported by a Republican governor and included on its board prominent local civic leaders, including one former Nixon administration official who has given $1,500 to McCain’s campaign this year. Education Week says the group’s work “reflected mainstream thinking” among school reformers. The group was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, started by a $49 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation, which was established by the publisher Walter Annenberg, a prominent Republican whose widow, Leonore, is a contributor to the McCain campaign.

For Fact Checks I missed while rebuilding the server, go to the FactCheck website.

Ya know, the lies are bad enough.

But what is truly appalling is that Republipartisans are so willing to wrap themselves up in willful ignorance as to profess them. And maybe even believe them.

I do not think that Senator Obama is the second coming.

Remember, I was a Dodd guy.

But, frankly, the basic rule, based on the experience of things seen, is this:

Any Democrat is better than every Republican.

The rest of the political discourse starts from that point.

The Current Federal Administrator has proved that and sealed it with a kiss.

General Wesley Clark (ret.) on Candidate McCain: Longevity is not experience:

Via Deoliver47.

Olbermann looks at the big picture.

This doesn’t have to do with “Liberal” vs. “Conservative.”

This has to do with truth vs. lies.

Transcript here.

Via the Huffington Post.

More of the same:

No, McHack can’t be a referee of every advertisement.

But he could publically disavow lies and smears (emphasis added).

GOP presidential contender John McCain says he can’t control every attack ad aimed at Democrat Barack Obama and fully expects he’ll face a similar barrage, sounding the bell for a raucous general election brawl.

“I can’t be a referee of every spot run on television,” McCain told the Herald in an exclusive interview. “I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, but we all know there are groups who want to attack me.”

The Arizona senator’s hands-off posture on attack ads by now-infamous tax-free and unaccountable political groups called 527s marks a softening of his view on the negative campaign tactic – and opens the door to a no-holds-barred five-month scramble.

Via Steve.

What Digby said.